I gave myself a learning vacation. There were no other co-workers at these sessions, all new people from new companies coming from a variety of contexts.
Getting a chance to think on an entirely new idea created some space in my brain. Of course, it filled it up as well and I need to start practicing GTD (Getting Things Done) so I can regularly make space.
But back to the created space, my week was spent studying the practice of Holacracy, an alternative approach to organizational structure and operation. It is generally spoken of as compared (contrasted with) to a typical hierarchical structure, which is seen in most organizations. As I thought about it in the context of my company (ThoughtWorks) the comparison is a little different. While in a traditional structure power and authority is pretty clearly delineated at ThoughtWorks it is not. So in many ways implementing Holacracy would be implementing structure or at least explicit structure, which is something most of my colleagues would balk at due to an aversion to hierarchy and rules that seem box one in. But I think that aversion is not about structure but rather the pathology that comes with certain structures.
By pathology I mean those behaviors that one must enact in order to get things done that out of context might seem, well, pathological. (The politics and manipulation of the system for example or the elitist mentality, you’re either in or you are out).
What I liked about Holacracy is that as a system it doesn’t support that kind of behavior as a means to getting things done. In fact is shines a light on it and forces it out of the room.
The best thing my week did for me was give me a lens from which to think of my current situation and examine what behaviors are created by our environment which I have taken for granted. And to see if there is a way to bring some of the healthy behaviors into play and create a grass roots movement of change.
